Herbert Siguenza is a little hard to pin down — in the best possible way. He’s an artist with a bachelor’s degree in painting, but he’s spent most of his career a performer. He’s a founding member of Culture Clash, a Chicano American performance troupe that started in San Francisco on Cinco de Mayo in 1984. The troupe has created sketch comedy, full-length plays, works for television and film, and offers political and social commentary on Latino life and culture in America. In Siguenza’s own writing, he often tackles subjects with political and social weight.

Editor’s note: Playwright and poet Arlitia Jones is in Juneau for Perseverance Theatre’s world premiere of her play, “Rush at Everlasting,” which opens Friday. While she’s in town, she will also be participating in a poetry reading Sunday at the Juneau Public Library downtown along with Emily Wall and Ernestine Hayes.

Amy O’Neill Houck sat down with Jones at The Douglas Café this week to talk about theater and playwriting, poetry and life as an Alaskan playwright. Here are some excerpts from their conversation.

“The first time I came here I felt, in a very beautiful way… like I was on a different planet. I got off the plane and I took the breath of fresh air, my lungs expanded and I saw the mountains, and I thought, ‘this feels like setting of the play.’ Because nature is immense here, you cannot live here and not respect and see and honor nature, and that’s at the core of the play. And even though the play had been selected to be here before I got here, I thought we really have picked the perfect place.” —Marcus Gardley